Friday, 29 November 2013

"Making the best out of a bad situation." Writer, mentor and motivational speaker, Shaka Senghor gives us a candid, behind the scenes peek into his life leading up to and during his incarceration for second degree murder. Witty and eloquent in his delivery, Shaka offers sobering firsthand accounts of redemption, the power of hope and how literature changed his life.

Shaka Senghor's story of redemption has inspired young adults at high schools and universities across the nation. While serving 19 years in prison, Senghor discovered his love for writing. He has written six books, including a memoir about his life in prison, Writing My Wrongs. In 2012, Senghor's Live in Peace Digital and Literary Arts Project won a Black Male Engagement Leadership Award from the Knight Foundation in partnership with the Open Society Foundation's Campaign for Black Male Achievement. Senghor has also recently been named a Director's Fellow at MIT for his work.

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

The Palestinian Prisoners Center for Studies said in a report that
the Israeli occupation has been exercising all forms of torture and
violence against Palestinian female prisoners in its jail.

The center's report was marking the International Day for the
Elimination of Violence against Women that falls on November 25th.

The center said that the international institutions, which enact
laws prohibiting torture and violence against women, have been turning
a blind eye to the occupation's abuses and practices against
Palestinian women and female prisoners.

Media spokesman for Palestinian Prisoners Center, researcher Riad
al-Ashqar pointed out that Israel has arrested since the occupation of
the Palestinian territories more than 10 thousand Palestinian women and
since the Aqsa Intifada more than 1,100 women, 14 of whom are still
held in Israeli jails, including 5 patients.

He added that the Palestinian women are held under harsh conditions
in Israeli custody, as they are subjected to humiliating treatment and
repeated attacks by jailers, in addition to the policy of strip
searches.

The Israeli prison administration has also been holding Palestinian
female prisoners in the solitary confinement, depriving them of
education, and imposing heavy fines on them for trivial reasons.

Freed prisoner Muntaha Mahmoud al-Hih said she was tortured and
severely beaten by the Israeli soldiers during her interrogation, which
caused her bleeding in the kidney. She was also put in solitary
confinement and was cuffed for long hours, she added.

For her part, recently liberated captive Inam Qalambo asserted that
a number of Israeli soldiers arrested her and beat her on the face, and
then transferred her to Moscobiya interrogation center where they used
electricity in torturing her, during the interrogation.

Researcher Riad al-Ashqar also pointed to the suffering of the
patient prisoners from the deliberate policy of medical neglect adopted
in the occupation jails.

The Palestinian Prisoners Center for Studies appealed to the
international and human rights institutions, particularly those
concerned with women's issues, to immediately intervene to put an end
to the worsening suffering of female prisoners, to work on releasing
them from jails, and to force the occupation to commit to the Fourth
Geneva Convention.

Voices from Solitary: “A Prison Where the
Building Becomes the Shackles”

Former political prisoner Ray Luc Levasseur was raised in Maine,
born to a working-class family of Quebecois origin. He became
politically radicalized at a young age, first after serving a term of
duty in Vietnam, and again after spending two years in a Tennessee
prison. In 1986, Ray Luc Levasseur was convicted for militant
activities conducted with the United Freedom Front. He would
ultimately spend about 15 of his 18 years in prison in solitary
confinement. First sent to the Control Unit at USP Marion, he was
transferred to the federal supermax, ADX Florence, after refusing to
work for the Federal Prison Industries (UNICOR) since it produced
military equipment for the Department of Defense. Levasseur was
released in 2004 and now lives in Maine. (For more on Ray Luc
Levasseur, see the interview published
in conjunction with this piece.)

The following is an excerpt from a larger piece that Levasseur
is writing. It describes the day he arrived at ADX Florence and his
initial experiences at the prison. – Aviva Stahl

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Approaching the federal prison complex, I saw majestic snow capped
mountain peaks in the distance, an image to cherish when all else
disappears behind closed walls. We rode through the complex: minimum
security camp, medium security prison, maximum security prison, and
continued to the end of the compound of the federal prison system.

ADX, administrative maximum, a prison where the building becomes the
shackles. From outside ADX look half-buried, built against an earth
berm. It wasn’t underground but might as well have been, once you’re
inside. The mountains and the reminder of the outside world were erased
as were entered the first door. We were led through a maze of polished
hallways and bright lights, bar grills, steel doors and ubiquitous
surveillance cameras. My travelling companion and I were placed in
cells on an unoccupied tier. The cells were brand-spanking new, never
before occupied. I had never had a new house, a new car or a new
apartment but I now had a new prison cell.

This is a boxcar cell, designed to suppress human sound and
constrain the five senses. I spoke to the walls. “Ray Luc, present
and accounted for!” My voice echoed throughout the cell, a cough
sounded like a racket ball carom. There would be no casual
conversations with my one neighbour.

When fed through a shoe-box sized slot in the door the meal looked
like dog-food on noodles. We missed the regular feeding time and this
tray was sitting around somewhere. I hadn’t eaten all day so despite my
trepidation I pushed the dog food aside and ate the noodles with a
plastic spoon. I spent most of that first night retching and vomiting
into the stainless steel commode. Food poisoning. Forty-eight years
old and I’ve entered a new phase in my life – a mid life crisis
embodied in a techno-fascist architectural wet dream.

Society reflects the self in a microcosm of prison. In a class
based, economically driven, racially motivated life, devolved of a
series of Chinese boxes. A set of boxes decreasing in size so that each
box fits in the next larger one. I’m in the smallest box.

The essence of ADX is the boxcar cell. This boxcar doesn’t move.
It is a cage within a box encased by concrete. Entry is through a solid
steel door that contains a small Plexiglas observation window. And then
the trap – dead space. Then a series of vertical steel bars which forms
the front of the cage and a second door. I am confined to the boxcar
cell 157 hours of each 168 hour week. I am allowed 11 hours a week into
a barren concrete area adjacent to the cellblock between Mondays and
Fridays. The rec space (i.e. recreation space) is like the deep end of
a dry swimming pool with walls. I see only walls, except straight up
through the wire mesh, steel cables and joists a section of sky. That’s
the term, ‘outside rec’.

Other men begin occupying the cells on my tier. The boxcar cell is
designed to gouge prisoner’s senses by suppressing human sound and
communication with others. It puts blinders on one’s eyes and limits on
touching to that which is lifeless. A boxcar cell is designed to
inflict physical, psychological, and spiritual isolation. You will
feel the pain. You will not leave the boxcar cell except in
restraints. Within months it seems endless. Every morning begins with
a loud grating of the steel gate opening to the tier. One at a time,
each of the electronically controlled doors opens, a guard steps to the
second barred door and slides the food tray through the slot, then
steps back while the door is closed, with a vengeance. On down the
line, until the last tray is delivered. A half hour later we go
through the paces again until the last tray is retrieved, followed by
silence.

At my first visit with a friend and lawyer from Chicago, she said,
“Ray, you seem agitated.”

I had a thousand yard stare by then, and responded: “Hey, you’d be
agitated too if you felt like your face was slapped every morning you
get up in this shithole.”

“Okay, I understand but why don’t you sit down while you’re talking?
You step left to the wall, then right to the wall, you don’t sit still.”

“You see what I got to sit on? A concrete stump – it’s a *******
post- same as in my cell. Why would I wanna sit on that?”

“But you’re unfocused at times, you’re jumping all over while you’re
talking. First you talk about your kids one minute, then tell me about
a prisoner in seg [segregation] who’s tearing his flesh with his teeth.
Then without missing a beat you’re into Agent Orange and Vietnam.”

“Look, there’s nothing wrong with me, alright, nothing that the
shining light of freedom wouldn’t fix. I know why I’m in prison in ADX,
I’ll be a witness to what’s happening here. That’s what I’m doing,
that’s what I’m writing about. They’re keeping that segregation
prisoner in four point restraints, you understand. He’s four pointed
to a concrete slab. They say every time they unchain him, he’s back to
tearing at his flesh. Even the hacks are spooked by him. You know, what
is it about this place that makes a man do that to himself. Several
prisoners have already been a packed off to the pscyh ward at
Springfield.”

“How do you know this?”

“I know it from prisoners rotating in and out of segregation unit,
otherwise there could a major riot in the cellblock next to mine and I
wouldn’t know about it, sound doesn’t travel far here. You can’t see
beyond immediate walls and doors.”

“You’re in the same environment Ray, it’s got to affect you.”

“It does, it ******* enrages me, I get homicidal thoughts and
migraines that begin with a spider crawling up my cervix and injecting
a twelve load jolt of mind-******* pain into my skull. But you know
what, in the immediate aftermath of physical pain I feel good. It
takes the absence of pain to feel good here. It’s scary, the
psychological is not always as evidence as the physical.”

“Unless you’re eating your own flesh.”

“Right, unless you’re eating your own flesh, or your own shit, I saw
that in MCC [Metropolitan Correctional Center] in New York.”
I didn’t dwell on if or when I’d extricate myself from ADX because
this line of thinking would drive me into deeper depression.

We prisoners are being told that as long as we are mentally healthy or
not succumbing to CDCr’s debriefing policy, we will not be eligible for
release from solitary confinement. Despite all the hype promising
change, CDCr is still claiming that our placement inside solitary
confinement is justified, despite the clear injustice of holding us
here indefinitely, to no end, for nothing.

Because many of us have maintained our mental stability under such a
barbaric system, we do not meet the criteria for release, but as soon
as we begin to exemplify any signs of mental illness, we immediately
qualify for release. Does this not suggest that our placement inside
solitary confinement is for the sole purpose of driving us to become
mentally ill patients?

CDCr simply waits for us to begin to suffer from the effects of
mental illness like so many before us. They’re looking for us to put
fecal matter all over our bodies, talk to ourselves, beat on the cell
door, holler at the top of our lungs until we fall asleep from
exhaustion, throw urine and fecal matter on staff and prisoners, commit
suicide or attempt suicide, become anti-social etc., only to be taken
out of our cell by force and placed in four corner restraints and
heavily sedated and neutralized into a zombie state.

This has been the pattern for all of those we have seen driven into
mental illness, due directly to their placement in solitary
confinement. Why does CDCr even wait for any of us to succumb to mental
illness when we are, for the most part, normal – unless being normal is
not OK.

Many of us have kept our mental stability or capacity to some degree
throughout all the years we’ve been in solitary confinement. Wouldn’t
it be only right for the state – for CDCr – to prevent prisoners from
eventually succumbing to such a fate, because we all know the longer
you’re here, the greater your mental and physical deterioration.

Hasn’t CDCr created enough mentally ill prisoners through the use of
solitary confinement? Hasn’t CDCr caused enough suicides through the
use of solitary confinement? Hasn’t CDCr emasculated enough prisoners
through its de-briefing policy? Why can’t we – normal, functioning
human beings – remain as such?
END LONG TERM SOLITARY CONFINEMENT NOW!

Thursday, 28 November 2013

A
group of European beasts, many had been imprisoned or homeless in
England, arrived in New England in 1620. They first lived on Turtle
Island.

Half
of them died within the first few months. Squanto, of the Pequot
people, who had been enslaved by the Europeans and taken to England,
spoke English and formed a "close" relationship with these "pitiful"
migrants. He taught them how to grow corn and to fish, how to put
together certain foods, and other survival skills.

The white people "saw Squanto as a tool of their god to help his chosen people."

In other words, they used him. To them, he and his people were "heathens" and "savages".

The
world view of the indigenous peoples, much like the Afrikan world view,
taught them "to give freely to those who had nothing.

Squanto is said to have negotiated a false "treaty" between the

nearby
Wampanoag and the "pilgrims". The leader of the Wampanoag Nation,
Massasoit, donated food stores to the struggling colony of Europeans.

In
1621, having survived a hard winter, due to the help of the Wampanoag,
the Europeans celebrated, as was their custom to have "thanksgivings" to
their god.

No
Wampanoag or members of any other indigenous nations were invited. And
yet, they came and supplied most of the food. In return for helping them
to survive, the "pilgrims" decimated the Wampanoag through disease,
treachery and slaughter in the years which followed.

By
1637, as the Europeans were feeling successful, more powerful and in
control of their newly taken over territory, an crew was sent to
Connecticut, near Groton.

Over 700
Indigenous peoples (Pequot) were celebrating their yearly harvest
(Annual Green Corn Festival), when they were taken by surprise by the
white invaders.

Their
men were shot and clubbed to death, while their women and children were
burned alive. Winthrop, the first governor of Massachusetts Bay
Colony, proclaimed a "day of thanksgiving," saying that they should
thank god for destroying the savages to make way for "a better
growth" (quoted in the work of Cotton Mather).

What
followed shows a most vicious record of continuing slaughters of the
indigenous people of this land now known as "america."

It became the custom of the white destroyers to follow each massacre with a "thanksgiving."

Rewards
would be given to those who returned with the skulls of indigenous
people to encourage their slaughter. In 1863, it was decided to
"celebrate" only one annual day of "thanksgiving," proclaimed by Abraham
Lincoln.

At
a later period, the 4th Thursday of November was chosen by the
capitalists, calculated to dramatize the shopping days until christmas.
It became a marketing scheme.

In
1970, at the 350th anniversary of the landing of the pilgrims, a leader
of Indigenous peoples prepared a speech in which he told the true
history of Plymouth, and berated the white people for robbing the graves
of the Wampanoag. The officials of Massachusetts did not allow him to
make the speech.

Every
year since then, Indigenous people of this land have looked upon the
4th Thursday of November as a day of mourning. (See Russell Means, Susan
Bates, and Jaqueline Keeler, and other sources for more information.)

We,
Black people in America, are victims of the same process that resulted
in the murder of millions of Indigenous people and the decimation of
their Nations. "america was built by stolen labor on stolen land!"

That is the legacy of white folk on this continent. That is what this country represents.

Taking without thanks!

Change is not easy. We are used to celebrating with our families on this day.

It
is always so good to come together and share a meal with each other,
But we do have other choices. And we always need to be in the process of
growth. Growth makes change necessary.

We can change a little at a time, remembering that our goal is Afrikan Freedom.

1.
When you are with your family on Thursday, November 22, take a moment
to remember and talk about the true meaning of this "holy day"

2.
We don't have to contribute to the profit-making mania organized by the
large conglomerates, encouraging us to spend money that we don't have
during the weekend following that day. Don't shop!

3.
Make the sacrifice of fasting on that day. Yes, it will be a challenge,
but you can still enjoy your family and at the same time identify with
those who were exploited, murdered, and raped of

their resources, as we have been. (This is not a cause for celebration.)

4.
Let us choose a day on which the Pan-Afrikan World Nation gives thanks
together for the gift of Afrikan Ancestry, and the sacrifices that have
been made for us by our Ancestors! We can

This past Saturday, thousands of people marched from San Juan to
Brooklyn demanding the release of Oscar López Rivera. Oscar López
Rivera has served 32 years in the dungeons of imperialism for the crime
of fighting for the independence of Puerto Rico as a member of the Armed
Forces for National Liberation (FALN). At 70 years of age, López
Rivera is
recognized as one of the longest held political prisoners in the world.

Contrary to the false image of passive acceptance of colonial rule
promoted by imperialism, the struggle for Puerto Rican independence has
continued for more than 115 years. At times openly combative while at
others primarily in more muted forms, the struggle for independence in the
colonial world is a peculiar expression of class struggle. As such, it is
important to view the campaign for the release of López Rivera, an
important symbol of that struggle in Puerto Rico, from that perspective.

In recent years there has been increased awareness and activism around
the case of Oscar. However, it is impossible to truly understand the
growing support for Oscar without putting the campaign for his release
in the current social and economic context of Puerto Rican society.
That is to say, the renewed popular support of a militant jailed for
waging armed
struggle against imperialism coincides with and reflects a general disgust
with a colonial system in irreversible decline. Massive, structural
unemployment, as well as unprecedented levels of public and private debt
have come to characterize Puerto Rican society just as the rest of the
capitalist world. A decaying infrastructure, inadequate public services
in the areas of public health and education, and endemic violence complete
the picture of a territory once hailed by US imperialism as the “showcase
of the Caribbean” during the cold war era. The result has been a constant
stream of people forced to abandon the country in an attempt to secure a
better life for themselves and their families. As a direct colony of the
United States, the responsibility for what happens in Puerto Rico falls
directly on the US ruling class and its political representatives,
notwithstanding the incompetence and corruption of the colonial lackeys
that administer the daily operations of the colonial-state apparatus.

It is certainly true that the expansion of the campaign to release Lopez
Rivera, which includes a significant number of people that do not identify
as independentistas or progressives, and much less socialists or
communists, has been accompanied by a growing tendency to separate the
man from the cause for which he is imprisoned. This is a deliberate
strategy often used by the ruling classes to dull the militant edge of
popular
manifestations with the potential to radicalize consciousness. Among the
35 thousand that marched in San Juan on November 23rd, the media, as is
custom, highlighted the appearance and statements of a few opportunist
politicians and “celebrities” to reinforce this tendency.

Notwithstanding, the fact that the bulk of those that marched consisted of
labor, both organized and non-organized members, unemployed, students,
etc. proves the growing connection between the daily concerns of working
people and questions of justice and the right to political independence in
the collective consciousness. Over the past couple of years, Puerto Rico
has been the scene of violent protests of university students that
resulted in the occupation of the campus of the University of Puerto Rico,
massive mobilizations against the efforts of capital to loot public
pension funds, and a recent march demanding the creation of a jobs
program. Although these struggles are by no means evidence of a
widespread revolutionary consciousness capable of radically transforming
society in the near term, they do highlight the will to fight back, to
resist, to not passively accept the conditions imposed by capital in one
of the oldest colonies in the world. They are the germs without which
higher forms of consciousness are impossible.

The continued militancy of Oscar López Rivera, after more than three
decades of imprisonment, is a living testimony of the indomitable will to
resist all attempts to break the combative spirit of a man, who has become
a symbol of his people, yearning for freedom.

We are calling for every tenant
affected by The Size Criteria Rule (Bedroom Tax), with a Social Housing
tenancy commencing before 1/4/2013 to be made exempt.
It would make every Social tenant equal to private tenants, who are
affected by a similar rule called The Local Housing Allowance (LHA).
Private Tenants were made exempt from the LHA, on the premise that they
had a tenancy agreement before the rules introduction on the 7/4/2008.
As the current Govt are adamant we have the same rule for both
sectors, then surely they should recognise this massive error. They need
to stop misleading the Public.
Clearly it's time to bring this up to date and make the Social Sector tenants prior to 1/4/2013 EXEMPT!
Regardless of circumstances
Remember: one of the main premises for the Bedroom Tax introduction was the LHA.
So WeWillBeHeard (.org) are calling for the two sectors to be treated equally.
Exemptions for Bedroom Tax sufferers with tenancies prior to April 1st 2013

Wednesday, 27 November 2013

Noreen McNulty remembers the life of a passionate activist against the death penalty.

Delbert Tibbs
WE LOST a freedom fighter, a poet, a friend and a beautiful soul a
few days ago in Chicago. Delbert Tibbs passed away in his home on
November 23.
Delbert was known to people around the world as a witness to the
barbarism of the death penalty system in the U.S. and an activist
against it. Delbert spent three years on Florida's death row until he
was found innocent and exonerated.
Delbert was born in Mississippi to tenant farmer parents--when he was
12, he and his mother moved to Chicago. While traveling the country in
1974, Delbert was stopped and questioned by police in Florida about the
rape of a teenaged woman and the murder of her companion, both of them
white.
The description of the suspect from the surviving victim was nearly
the opposite of Delbert. The suspect was described as 5-foot-6-inches,
with a dark complexion. Delbert had a light complexion and was over 6
feet tall. Delbert had a solid alibi, but that didn't stop prosecutors
from putting him on trial, aided by the testimony of a jailhouse snitch
who later said he fabricated his claim that Delbert had confessed to him
in the hopes of lenient treatment on a rape charge. An all-white jury
convicted Delbert after two days of deliberations.
There was a public campaign for Delbert's freedom--folksinger Pete
Seeger wrote a song about his case. The Florida Supreme Court eventually
reversed his conviction and Delbert was released in 1977. Five years
later, the charges against him were officially dropped.
Delbert went on to speak across the country and around the world,
often on national and international tours for the anti-death penalty
group Witness to Innocence. But Delbert is especially well known and
loved by the abolitionist community in Chicago, where he was always
ready to share his story and speak out for justice at rallies, protests,
public forums and church meetings.
Delbert's fellow Chicago and fellow death row exoneree Darby Tillis remembered his friend this way:

He was just a wonderful man and a gentle giant. He touched a lot of
people all across the world. He's been out there speaking for more than
30 years--constantly on the go. He had just returned from a tour. He
never said anything to offend anyone. He was humble.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
BECAUSE OF what happened to him, and what he saw happening to so many
other Black men caught up in the injustice system, Delbert always
pointed to the issue of racism in U.S. society. The Final Call
quoted him telling a gathering of several dozen people: "If you're Black
and grew up in America, you know nothing else has been applied fairly.
So why would the death penalty be applied fairly?"
Whenever you would see Delbert, he was ready with warm words and a
strong hug. When he told his story in his deep and steady and persuasive
voice, he moved people to become more committed opponents of capital
punishment. If you want to see Delbert at his persuasive best, watch this segment from the series of short films about innocence and the death penalty called One for Ten.
The creators of the play The Exonerated also featured Delbert,
along with five other former death row prisoners, talking about the
death penalty and justice in their own words. One of Delbert's speeches
goes to the heart of the tough-on-crime hysteria:

I understand why people are afraid. I mean, I do think the world itself
can be quite frightening by getting up everyday. I understand, but you
can't give in to that. It's like they say in those cowboy pictures:
nobody's going to live forever, so if you got to go, then you might as
well go being about the highest thing that you can be. And that means
learning not to fear other people.

Delbert always had faith in people and thought that when they were
mobilized, they could do great things. He felt uplifted when people took
his words to heart--one person told him that after hearing him speak,
he was inspired to go into public interest law. Delbert said, "It really
makes me believe the Great Spirit laid this trip on me so that I could
bear witness of this terrible thing we call the death penalty in the
U.S."
Delbert's kind soul and powerful words will live on in his poetry and in all of the hearts he touched. Rest in peace, Delbert.

Ayyub Abdul-Alim has spent two years
awaiting trial for the "crime" of refusing to be a police informant in
Springfield's Muslim community, reports Vanessa Whitney Zorlu.

Supporters of Ayyub Abdul-Alim gather for a rally before a court date (Justice for Ayyub)
THE FIGHT to free Ayyub Abdul-Alim, a Muslim man and local business
owner in Springfield, Mass., has heated up in the last two weeks.
On November 15, Ayyub's defense team arrived in court for a "motion
to suppress" hearing that would have challenged the use of paid
informants and an illegal search by the police in his arrest. More than
60 people mobilized to the courthouse to show their support for
Ayyub--and in the process got a firsthand glimpse of just how scared the
courts can be of public scrutiny.
Ayyub's ordeal began after he told the FBI and Springfield police
that he would not serve as an informant in his city's Muslim community.
In retaliation, he was framed with an illegal firearms charge, was taken
into custody and has remained there since awaiting trial. That was two
years ago.
When Ayyub's supporters entered the courthouse in mid-November, they
learned that the hearing date had been changed. Ayyub was not in the
courthouse, and no one had been notified of the date change. Tom
Robinson, Ayyub's attorney, felt that the delay would give them more
time to find the informant who helped to frame Ayyub. He described her
testimony as "essential to Ayyub's defense."
Inside the courthouse, Robinson asked to see the sign-up sheet for
those requesting to be heard in front of the judge. He was told the
sheet was lost. When he asked how it had been lost, he was told due to
"inadvertence."
When the group came forward to inquire further, the flustered clerk
threw up his hands and finally said, "I shredded it!" The group then
went to the office of Hampden District Attorney Mark Mastroianni to
learn why the court date had been changed with no warning and to impress
on him their firm resolve to see Ayyub's charges dropped.

When the secretary saw how many people were waiting to speak to
Mastroianni, they brought cops into the office and then said that he was
"in a meeting" and would not be able to address the group.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
DESPITE THE frustration of being blown off by the court, the group
maintained its calm and moved forward with resolve. It came together to
write a statement for the DA, expressing displeasure at his lack of
addressing the group and reiterating solidarity with Ayyub.
"We are making history," said organizer Vira Cage. People came out to
support Ayyub, but for many it was a great insight into the workings of
the "justice system"--and how disorganized and disinterested the
courthouse and law officials are in working with the people for justice.
"This is a great day," said Hampshire College student Marcelle French. "The suits are intimidated by the T-shirts."
Some speculated that the court date had been changed in order to
demoralize Ayyub's supporters and deter them from coming back, but if
this was the court's intention, they must have been disappointed. A
group of more than 50 people again mobilized to the courthouse for the
rescheduled hearing on November 21. The movement to free Ayyub continues to grow with spirit, energy and numbers.First published at Peace Walks.http://socialistworker.org/2013/11/26/stepping-up-the-pressure

A candlelight vigil in Houston memorializes a transgender murder victim (Ben Tecumseh DeSoto)
ACCORDING TO a nationwide study conducted by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLESN),
90 percent of LGBTQ students report hearing derogatory language or
experience some type of verbal bullying, and more than 50 percent
experience some kind of physical harassment or assault.
LGBTQ students are five times more likely to cut class or skip school
because they feel unsafe, while 28 percent will drop out of school
altogether because of bullying. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and queer youth
are five times more likely to attempt or commit suicide than their
straight peers, while trans youth are nine times more likely.
In 2011, the "It Gets Better" campaign became a national phenomenon.
Thousands of people--from celebrities like Lady Gaga to ordinary high
school students--produced video messages of support for LGBTQ youth
struggling with bullying.
The decision of so many to show their solidarity with LGBTQ youth,
and the way in which the "It Gets Better" campaign helped catapult the
issue of bullying and suicide into the national spotlight, is a major
advance for the LGBTQ movement. But we can't leave the responsibility of
ending anti-LGBTQ bullying and youth suicide on the shoulders of the
victims.
By telling LBGTQ youth who are experiencing violence and struggling
with suicide that it's their responsibility alone to overcome and
survive these struggles, without also highlighting the many ways in
which our education system, politicians and the government are
systematically failing to address these problems, we run the risk of
blaming the victims and leaving the biggest bullies--politicians and
school officials--off the hook.
Message of support to LGBTQ youth are a beautiful sign of solidarity,
but alone, they are inadequate to deal with the depth and scale of the
crisis at hand.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
CREATING SCHOOLS that are safe places for LGBTQ youth and affirming
to people across the sexual and gender spectrum requires addressing the
problem on multiple levels. Being a teenager is tough enough. Being a
gay teenager is even tougher.
Having slurs like "faggot" hurled at you in the hallways, getting
spat on after school, having your head bashed into a few lockers, and
being forced to fend off upperclassmen who try to beat you up are just a
few examples of what I had to put up with as a gay teen.
Homophobia took its toll on me; in my early teens, I struggled
intensely with suicide, depression and low self-esteem. Thankfully, with
the help and support of friends, family and supportive LGBTQ youth
organization, I got through it. These are the sorts of organizations
that need to be supported.
On a micro level, educators and student allies can play a role in
making schools a welcoming space for LGBTQ students by calling out
anti-LGBTQ bullying, taking time to discuss LGBTQ issues in the
classroom, and supporting LGBTQ students when they work to address these
problems.
At the same time, teachers and students are highly limited in their
ability to make a difference in their schools and the lives of LGBTQ
youth as long as school districts and state and federal agencies fail to
take the necessary steps to address the problem on a structural,
policy-wide level.
While many school districts and states refuse to adequately address
anti-LGBTQ bullying, some have adopted programs to address these
problems but lack the resources necessary to seriously implement the
far-reaching measures required. This is especially true for schools in
lower income communities, which are disproportionately made up of
students of color and lack the same resources as their wealthier, whiter
suburban counterparts.
Given the pervasiveness of anti-LGBTQ bullying and youth suicide,
far-reaching changes are required to make schools a safe and affirming
place for LGBTQ youth. This includes measures such an LGBTQ-inclusive
curriculum, sexual health classes that address LGBTQ issues, more
on-site social workers and counselors, anti-bullying and suicide
prevention educational programs for students and faculty, and the
necessary funding required to adequately implement these programs.
In addition to creating safe schools, community organizations such as the Boston Alliance of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Youth (BAGLY) and FIERCE are also important to providing affirming and empowering outlets for LGBTQ youth.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
OFTEN, THE problems of anti-LGBTQ bullying and suicide are narrowly
discussed as a problem of insensitive bullies. Normally, punitive
measures like suspensions, expulsions and, in some extreme cases,
criminal prosecutions are the focus of solutions put forward by public
officials.
Generally, little help is offered to those who have been victimized,
and few policies that could transform the larger structural factors that
allow bullying to flourish in the first place are ever even
contemplated.
Ending anti-LGBTQ bullying and the damaging--even
life-threatening--mental health issues it produces does not need to
include increasing incarceration. Holding bullies accountable by
requiring them to undergo LGBTQ educational programs and providing them
with counseling does more to eliminate bullying and creating an
LGBTQ-inclusive environment in schools than simply punishing
perpetrators with suspensions or prison sentences.
Transforming our schools has to be the aim of our efforts.
Only a decade or two ago, one would be hard-pressed to find more then
a handful of politicians willing to address anti-LGBTQ bullying. But
now, elected officials are talking publicly about these issues. Even
President Barack Obama made an "It Gets Better" video. This sea change
in official discourse is undoubtedly due to years of grassroots activism
by parents, students and educators.
While many politicians are now quick to lend their support to issues
such as gay marriage and anti-bullying campaigns, few are actually
willing to seriously push for the necessary policy changes to address
the range of problems affecting LGBTQ young people, in and outside of
schools. Even the rare few who do, like Massachusetts Gov. Deval
Patrick, fail to allocate the necessary resources and funding to
adequately deal with the problem.
Too often, the same Democratic politicians who are willing to speak
at LGBTQ events, solicit LGBTQ votes, take LGBTQ donations and advocate
for LGBTQ equality are the same officials complicit in cutting funding
for the very programs that LGBTQ youth depend on.
The lives of LGBTQ young people are not playthings to be tossed
around for political capital. As people who want schools that are safe
and affirming places for LGBTQ students and hope for a future where no
young person will ever feel like death is a better option then living,
we have a responsibility to hold politicians accountable to their
rhetoric.
We are best positioned to do this when we organize with others to
build grassroots movements that are less concerned with befriending the
political establishment and courting corporate sponsorship, and more
focused on doing whatever it takes to pressure those in power to
implement the wide-reaching changes required to end the range of
problems facing queer youth once and for all.First published at TheNation.com.

Elizabeth Schulte
tells the story of the campaign, organized against all odds, to keep
nine innocent Black teenagers from being executed in Alabama's death
chamber.

The Scottsboro Boys in prison, speaking with a lawyer
ALMOST 80 years after the trial that condemned nine innocent Black
teenagers to death for allegedly raping two white women, the Alabama
parole board has finally issued a pardon to the last three Scottsboro
Boys.
The old saying that "the wheels of justice turn slowly" is a grotesque understatement in this case.
The Alabama justice system's eight-decades-too-late decision only
underscores the Herculean antiracist struggle to save the nine youths
from a legal lynching in the 1930s Jim Crow South.
The Scottsboro Boys survived because of a fight waged across the
country, with protests and other actions that brought the realities of
Southern racism into the spotlight at the same time that they exposed
the racism that existed in every corner of U.S. society.
The campaign to defend the Scottsboro Boys centered around the basic
idea that justice would not and could not be won in the
courts--especially the courts of Alabama--but had to the won in the
streets. The protest movement, initiated by members of the Communist
Party (CP), became a focal point for antiracist organizing in the 1930s
and drew support around the country and around the world.
This one case highlighted the many ways racism is woven into the
institutions and beliefs of U.S. society--for example, the myth of the
Black rapist preying on virtuous white womanhood, or the idea that the
police and courts dispense justice evenhandedly.
But there is another lesson to be learned about Scottsboro: that a
determined campaign for justice, which put a premium on mobilizing
Blacks and whites together to fight racism alongside one another, could
defy the odds and stop the Alabama death machine from claiming nine more
victims.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
ON MARCH 25, 1931, nine Black youths hopped a freight train. Like
many unemployed people of the day, Black and white, the young men, aged
13 to 19, were simply searching for work, and needed transportation to
find it.
On the train, they got in a fight with some white youth, and the
whites complained to the nearest stationmaster. A posse was called to
apprehend the young Black men--it met the train in Paint Rock, Ala. When
they all got off the train, two young white women who had also hopped
the freight, Ruby Bates and Victoria Price, also disembarked.
The young men were taken to the Scottsboro, the seat of Jackson
County, where they were met by a racist lynch mob--and now, the charge
wasn't just fighting, but the rape of Bates and Price as well. The
National Guard was called in to protect the nine from a mob lynching--so
that their legal lynching could be carried out.
Jim Crow justice was swift in its judgment of the nine Black youths.
They went to court 12 days after their arrest, and their four trials
lasted a total of just four days.
Decisive testimony came from the two white women, who lied on the
stand about their alleged assault. In this lynch-mob setting before an
all-white audience, it was little surprise that the sentence was death
for all except 13-year old Roy Wright. "The courtroom," said 18-year-old
defendant Haywood Patterson, "was one big smiling white face."
If the trial were the end of the story, we would never have heard of
the Scottsboro Boys. But it wasn't--thanks to a campaign that mobilized
thousands of ordinary people to take on this racist injustice. Rather
than rely on convincing politicians and the courts that an injustice had
been done, the CP-led campaign instead relied on working people, Black
and white, coming together to oppose this injustice.
After the death sentences were announced, the CP called for a
nationwide protest movement. The party's legal defense wing, the
International Labor Defense (ILD), to contact the Scottsboro Nine and
their families about representing them in court.
The CP's strategy was to organize the best legal defense available,
while simultaneously building a national activist campaign--with the
understanding that pressure and mobilization from below was necessary to
save the nine. As a Liberator editorial argued at the time:
"There can be no such thing as a 'fair trial' of a Negro boy accused of
rape in an Alabama court. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a fool. Anyone
who says otherwise is trying to deceive."
The campaign put the Scottsboro Boys and their families at the center
of the struggle. Family members toured the country to speak about the
case, sometimes attracting thousands to hear them. The defense campaign
joined forces with various Black organizations, including community
groups, churches and fraternal organizations, to mobilize multiracial
crowds of protesters in support of the Scottsboro Boys.
For the CP, which called Scottsboro a "legal lynching," taking up the
case was about more than winning justice for nine innocent teenagers.
It was also about shining a light on the racism of U.S. society.
"Precisely because the Scottsboro case is an expression of the horrible
national oppression of the Negro masses," wrote the Daily Worker,
"any real fight...must necessarily take the character of a struggle
against the whole brutal system of landlord robbery and imperial
national oppression of the Negro people."
The campaign was also about proving in action how that Blacks and whites could come together to fight racism.
The CP's bold approach to organizing--prioritizing mass action and an
uncompromising condemnation of racism--stood in sharp contrast to the
NAACP, which at first avoided taking up the campaign at all. Later,
NAACP leaders tried to wrest control of the defense campaign from the CP
by convincing a few defendants to switch their representation. But the
defendants' families, who had experienced organizing with the
communists, convinced their sons otherwise.
Likewise, when Black Southern ministers tried to take over the fight
from the ILD, the Scottsboro families continued to support the CP-led
defense. "For the first time in their lives, white men were not telling
them what to do, but asking their support, on the basis of complete
equality," wrote Dan T. Carter in Scottsboro: A Tragedy of the American South.
"The contrast with the Minister's Alliance was all the more striking,
since neither Roddy nor Stephens [of the Alliance] had bothered to talk
with them about the cases."
When the communists who led the defense campaigns faced red-baiting
and race-baiting, this was met with fierce defenses from the people who
worked with them closest. "They tried to tell me that the ILD was
low-down whites and Reds," Haywood's mother, Janie Patterson, told a
rally in New Haven, Conn. "I haven't got no schooling, but I have five
senses, and I know Negroes can't win by themselves."
Patterson said, "I don't care whether they are Reds, Greens or Blues.
They are the only ones who put up a fight to save these boys, and I am
with them to the end."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
AROUND THE country, the CP organized rallies and demonstrations.
While the first events were small, turning out mostly party members,
outrage over the case among Black workers fueled larger turnouts as the
campaign progressed.
Nevertheless, some of the official policies of the Communist Party at
the time--which, under instructions from the Stalinist government in
Russia, were dominated by a strategy of exposing liberals at all
costs--held it back during some of the Scottsboro campaign. For example,
when Clarence Darrow, the famous lawyer and staunch opponent of the
death penalty, offered his services to the Scottsboro defense, the CP
said that he would have to publicly repudiate the NAACP to participate.
Darrow declined.
Despite this sectarianism, however, the CP's campaign--with its
outspoken opposition to racism and a commitment to multiracial
organizing--began to attract more and more supporters.
In April 1931, a rally that started with 200 mostly white Communists
gathered in Harlem swelled to over 3,000, most of them Black, in a
protest against the legal lynching. In Harlem, the campaign for the
Scottsboro Boys included important supporters from the arts and music,
such as poet Langston Hughes and singer Billie Holiday. Solidarity
protests were also organized by communists in other countries, including
a July 1931 rally in Germany, where 150,000 workers turned out to hear
Scottsboro mother Ada Wright.
A 1933 march in Washington, D.C., turned out 4,000 people who marched
for more than six miles in the pouring rain. The night before, several
thousand African Americans joined hundreds of white supporters at the
Mount Carmel Baptist Church to hear Ruby Bates, the alleged victim of
rape who now proclaimed the innocence of the nine youth. "They were
framed up at the Scottsboro trial," Bates said, "not only by the boys
and girls on the freight train, of which I was one, but by the bosses of
the Southern counties."
As a result of the growing pressure, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered
the death sentences indefinitely suspended, after the Alabama State
Supreme Court upheld the conviction of seven defendants and set their
execution date. The Supreme Court ultimately overturned the convictions,
but ordered new trials to take place in the Alabama courts. More
protests were organized in the lead-up to new trials in March 1933.
Then, Ruby Bates came out publicly to admit that the defendants never
touched her and hadn't even talked to her on the train. She explained
that police forced her to lie about the incident. The ILD toured Bates
across the country in support of the Scottsboro Boys.
But the Alabama courts had no interest in the truth. In a fourth
trial, the youths were still found guilty, but the sentences reduced to
life in prison--in the fifth, four were found innocent. In 1950, the
charges against all the Scottsboro Boys were finally dropped.
The defense campaign ultimately didn't win freedom for the Scottsboro
Boys, but it saved them from the execution chamber--an outcome that was
hard to imagine in the Jim Crow South of that era.
The years-long Scottsboro defense campaign provides important lessons
on how to organize a multiracial movement that protests an individual
racist attack--while linking it with the racism and inequality endemic
to capitalism that must be confronted in the struggle for a different
world.

Monday, 25 November 2013

Dominic Ware
is a former Walmart worker in the Bay Area and an activist in OUR
Walmart, a campaign led by Walmart "associates" and backed by the United
Food and Commercial Workers Union to demand a living wage, better
benefits, and an end to management harassment and disrespect on the job.
Last year, OUR Walmart organized some of the first strikes ever
inside Walmart stores, including a day of walkouts and demonstrations on
Black Friday, traditionally the biggest shopping day of the year. The
giant retailer is nonunion--Walmart has closed down departments and even
whole stores in response to the threat of unionization--but employees
working in OUR Walmart have some protections under federal labor law by
striking over unfair labor practices (ULP), such as management
retaliation, harassment and unsafe conditions.
OUR Walmart has coupled actions at local stores with nationally
sponsored protest initiatives that often culminate at Walmart's
corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Ark. For example, earlier this
year, Walmart workers who walked off the job were joined by supporters
in the Ride for Respect, modeled on the famous Freedom Rides in 1961 by
civil rights movement activists determined to desegregate instate bus
travel.
Earlier this year, after he participated in a strike call and the
Ride for Respect to Bentonville, Dominic was fired from the Walmart in
San Leandro, Calif. But he explained in an interview with Stephanie Schwartz and David Whitehouse, Dominic is carrying on the OUR Walmart struggle and the fight for justice for all low-wage workers.

Walmart workers and their supporters on the picket line for respect (Marc F. Henning)

HOW DID you get involved with the OUR Walmart campaign?

I DECIDED to get involved with OUR Walmart because, being a working
person and a part-time student, I felt I wasn't being respected on the
job I dedicated my life to, and that it was actually holding me back
from fulfilling my duties as a student. I had other job opportunities,
but I was dedicated to being loyal to Walmart because I believed in the
Walmart dream. I believed in being able to work hard and move up. I
believed that Walmart would take of their associates.
That's what I thought the first couple of months, but after working
there and getting my hours cut, I got a firsthand look at what Walmart
is really like, from the point of view of 10- or 12- or 15-year
associates. They pretty much dread coming in to work every day. That's
when it started to be that way for me as well--going in to work and
being disrespected on a day-to-day basis.
One example of being disrespected is Walmart's 15-foot rule, which
means that every single person who comes within that 15-foot sphere, you
have to acknowledge them, say hello and ask if they need any help. It
shocked me that the hourly associates have to do that, but the salaried
associates will walk past even their own employees and not even
acknowledge them being there.
I would come to work and try to be polite as possible, and on a daily
basis, management would just walk past me, you know? They can't be
friendly to me, they can't even say hello when they've obviously seen
me--and then five minutes later, they call me on the intercom to come
help with a carryout! It just bothered me.
I tried to handle the situation myself. I talked with my store
manager and asked her if Walmart had any type of hospitality training or
did any training at all on how to interact with their employees. She
was shocked that I said that. I was promised that things would change,
but nothing changed--as a matter of fact, she started doing the same
thing herself.
So I was pretty much through with Walmart--the bubble was busted. I
was able to see Walmart for the ugly corporation that it is. I was
through.
A few weeks after I talked to my store manager, I met an organizer
with Organization United For Respect at Walmart [OUR Walmart], and I've
been a proud, active, striking member since. I'm going on my second
anniversary, and just being in the organization has been the best time
of my life. I've learned so much, and I've just been so proactive in my
store and in Walmart's business overall.
Like I said, my main issue was respect. Poverty wages are already a
reason to stand up and strike, but I was hoping to become an assistant
manager one day. But after a year, I didn't move up at all. The only
thing I got after a year of hard work was a $.40-an-hour raise. I knew
that it wasn't just happening to me--it's happening to people all over
this beautiful country.

WHAT WAGE did you start out at?

I WAS part time at $8.25 an hour. And all I got after a year of hard
work was $.40 an hour--that's all I'm worth after my dedication, missing
holidays, missing family time, stressing myself out.
Just knowing that this is happening to people across this nation is
what keeps me going in the fight. I've been on strikes and picket lines
at the stores and at protests the home office, doing everything that I
can. We're letting the associates know that we have a voice and we have
the power, but we must educate each other and support each other if we
want to change anything at Walmart. That's the main message of this
organization I'm proud to be a part of.

CAN YOU tell us about the first walkout you were
involved in, when you went to Walmart headquarters in Bentonville, Ark.,
to protest?

IT WAS the first time I had a chance to meet with brothers and
sisters from Hawaii, Texas, Miami and all over, and stand in front of
Walmart's home office and demand that they respect us as workers. It
just enriched my soul, you know? I was meeting people who felt the same
way and were going through the same things, so many miles away from
where I called home.
We remixed the Michael Jackson song: "All I wanna say is that / They
don't really care about us." We did a flash mob in the first Walmart
store, and then we went to the home office, where we did a mic check.
Anybody who's been involved with a mic-check knows how amplified the
crowd gets and the connection when everyone who's speaking and getting
our voices heard, all at the same time.
Management was shaken. They didn't know what to do. Until I wore this
green [the color of the OUR Walmart campaign's T-shirts and other
materials], I never saw a look of fear on the face of a salaried worker
for Walmart. I've been on a couple of strikes since then, and I just
love it. If I was working at Walmart, I'd be doing a ULP strike today.

TELL US about why you're not working at Walmart now.

IT'S BECAUSE of the last ULP strike I was a part of earlier this year, which was the longest Walmart has ever seen.
A group of associates from all over the country--180 in total, I
think, with family and community supporters--went on the Ride for
Respect 2013. Those of you who are familiar with our history and all of
the fights we've been a part of know about the Freedom Riders of the
1960s. What we did was follow that blueprint and that spirit, and
duplicated it for modern times. I wish I could share with everybody that
experience so people could really feel how big it was, and how
detrimental it was to Walmart's name.
But as proof of that, after we came back, that's when they started
firing people. I was one of the first 20 associates fired, just for
speaking up for respect and a living wage.
I believe $12 an hour is a reasonable wage, and even that is really
close to the poverty line. Right now, an associate starting out, who is
working 40 hours a week all year, is making about $15,000. No one can
survive on that at all. We're asking for a few more pennies to help us
survive and get by while not being on government assistance and not
relying on other people or handouts to make it through the week--I don't
think we're asking for too much.
But that's pretty much that's what me and 20 other OUR Walmart members got fired for.

WHAT WILL be taking place on Black Friday this year?

THAT'S THE big event of the year. We're going to have a day for the
people. It's not going to just be about Walmart workers, but the Walmart
victims--people who don't even know they're being affected by this ugly
corporation and its mistreatment of workers. That's people like
fast-food workers, the warehouse workers who work for Walmart, even down
to the ports--all down the line.
Walmart has its hands in so many things that are wrong with this
country. On Black Friday this year, we're going to shine a light and let
our community know that we need Walmart to uphold its responsibility to
this country and its people, and to change for all of us. I'm just glad
to be a part of it. To be there and show support for each other is
going to be a real sight to see.
We're in a struggle right now. Throughout history, there have been
many struggles. People remember the struggle for women, and people
remember the struggle against racism by African Americans. Right now,
we're in the class struggle of our lives. I really advise that if you're
anywhere from the shrinking middle class on down, you need to get
activated and join this fight.

DO THIS year's protests look like they're going to be bigger than last year's?

HEY, LAST Black Friday was bigger than what I expected. I didn't
expect there to be 700 people going out on strike. The message is bigger
this year than last year, and it's going to keep getting bigger,
because these issues are getting uglier. Walmart's not getting any
better. It's a matter of time before everyone's activated and truly
understands the effects that Walmart is having on this country.

MANY OF the people reading this article will be
people outside of Walmart, who will show up on Black Friday and protest
in solidarity. What kind of organizing or feelings are taking place
inside the stores?

INSIDE THE stores, it's holiday time. People are probably getting 30
or 40 hours a week if they have seniority. Anybody who's been to one of
our actions knows that workers will be having the worst day while at
work, but they'll hear the action and the support of the community
members outside, and be able to come out and see people cheering them
on.
It really touches their hearts and gives them pride. A lot of people
don't have pride in what they do at Walmart. If you understand that
there are people who support you and understand what you're going
through and who are fighting to get you more respect, better pay and
more health benefits, it gives you a sense of pride.

WHAT CAN people do if they want to get involved in
supporting people like you who are working at Walmart, or who have been
fired for organizing?

IF YOU want to get plugged in and find out what's going on, go to
ForRespect.org. For something more specific about the Black Friday
protests, we have a website called BlackFridayProtests.org. And for
those of you in the Bay Area, you can go to my personal Facebook [search
for Dominic Ware] and my Twitter is @hellaourwalmart--yes, "hella,"
because this is the Bay Area.
In the Bay Area, the airport workers at Oakland have some things
going on--some awesome actions that we're teaming up with. And fast-food
and retail workers. We've combined our struggles, and we're going to be
doing more in December. Then there are port workers who have some
issues, and the BART workers. We support them and are trying to help
them get the win they deserve.

AFTER BLACK Friday, what's your vision for what's going to happen with OUR Walmart and all the people who are organizing?

MY VISION is that this little downtime that everybody is going to be
having in December isn't really downtime. It's a setting-up time. We're
going to be combining more of our fights and finding common ground with
each other, because that's what it's going to take. We need to stop
bickering over little issues and focus on the big issues at hand. So my
vision is for us to find more synchronicity with each other's fights,
and we join each other and back each other more.
I'm a history geek. My favorite subject in school was history, not
because I didn't like the other subjects, but because I like what's
real. I like to see what has worked and what hasn't, and history shows
us that.
If you go back to when workers were winning and when our country was
doing better, you'll see it was because workers were able to buy homes
and the price of living wasn't so far from much than minimum wage. So
that's what's going on in the Bay Area, and I hope it starts a domino
effect that goes all over, so we can win this beautiful country back for
the people.Transcription by Jason Netekhttp://socialistworker.org/2013/11/25/demanding-dignity-all-workers

Welcome To My World

About Me

DARCY D= YOU MUST BELIEVE.STANDING UP FOR THE INNOCENT C.E.O
The United Kingdom resident champions causes of the voiceless, the powerless and the weak, particularly in North America. She campaigns for petitions on behalf of incarcerated human trafficking.